Pleasant Lane
by Tortured Hylian Soul
Summary: There, the house on Pleasant Lane, where a father and daughter live by themselves, where a daddy dreams of his own bookcase and has forgotten how to smile by himself. Oneshot. Pre-SH3, Harry and Heather centric.


**Rather different from my usual writing style, but I liked the final product.**

**Contains spoilers for Silent Hill 3.**

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Daddy and I didn't always live in the house on Pleasant Lane. Before that we lived on Riverview, on the second floor, and the landowner always kept Daddy up when he would bang his broom on the ceiling while Daddy sat in his writing chair and stared out the window when he couldn't think of anything. Before that, it was 505 Road Less Traveled, and Daddy said he chose it because of its name, because he wanted something new and not because of the bad man who talked in rhyme and tried to take me away from our old house on Orange Drive; The man who broke my bedroom window and whose eyes bulged when he shot daddy and who screamed when Daddy stabbed him with the butter knife he was using to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. Before that we lived with Cybil, who is too young and quiet to be a mommy but still feels like a mommy to me. And before that, I can't even remember. All I know is that we move a lot, sometimes with Cybil and sometimes not.

Cybil tells me that I can call her Mommy but that her name is not Cybil anymore, that it's Sarah now, or Tanya, or Susan. Daddy tells me not to talk to strangers, that our new name is Carroll, like the man whose stories I like so much, or White, or Morris. Right now my name is Allison, Allison Morris, and they tell me that I can be Heather again when the bad people go away for good.

We had a dog once, when Cybil last lived with us. His name was Barney. His fur smelled like my father's books on Orange Drive and felt like my teddy bear at 505 Road Less Travelled. He always slept with Cybil in her bed, and when he had to go to the vet one night she couldn't fall sleep for a long time; she just stared at the ceiling and moved her lips when she thought we couldn't see. When Cybil told us that she had to go, we never had a pet again.

Sometimes Cybil scratches on our door when it's dark out and comes in smelling both sweet and sweaty and always crying really hard. Sometimes, when she isn't crying as much, she brings me a book from the library near her house, and I always finish it before she leaves again. We've seen her stumble in while wearing her uniform, or a pair of jeans and an old tee shirt, and one time, a few minutes after I finished my drawing for show and tell, she was crying in a skirt and sparkling shoes, dressed like the princesses on TV. Daddy always frowns and talks to her real quiet while she sniffs and squeezes a tissue, but neither of them ever gets angry. Most of the time, when Daddy and I wake up, our couch is folded up and breakfast is lying on the table under towels. Other times, she sleeps until after I come home from school. Sometimes Daddy is sitting next to her, and other times she just asks me to do a dance or sing a song or give her a hug.

They always smile at me, brush my hair and tell me how pretty I am, tell me jokes and stories with princesses and mermaids and fairies. But they never smile when they are by themselves, when they think I'm not looking, not even in their eyes. I've seen pictures, and know that they haven't always forgotten how to smile with their eyes.

Sometimes Daddy likes to put on old records while he shaves and combs his hair with water. He tells me to keep my favorite things with me as much as possible, and likes to give me books on tape for Christmas because I can't carry very many regular books in my backpack. He especially likes to play the records when he gives them to me on Christmas day, wrapped up in colorful newspaper with a ribbon wrapped around it. The records are always the same, but I like to dance on Daddy's shoes when they play. He sings nicely and never lets me fall.

I asked about my Mommy one time, my real mommy and not Cybil, who turns red when I call her that but never tells me not to. Daddy bit his lip and smiled, called me pumpkin and brushed my hair with his fingers while he stared at me for a long time. After a while he said yes, yes, your mommy was very beautiful and very smart, and had black hair like yours and eyes like yours and even a voice like yours, that she gave you to me while I was going through a very hard time. Then he turned real quiet and stared at the floor and asked me what I wanted for lunch.

The house on Pleasant Lane isn't like our other houses. We live on the second story above an old antique shop that Daddy doesn't like to go into, even though the old lady who owns it is really nice and likes to give me cookies when I have to walk home from school and beat Daddy home. The pipes never break and the ceilings never leak, and Daddy can write on his computer or go to sleep without listening to screaming neighbors or barking dogs. And it has a bedroom big enough for two small beds and a separated kitchen like the ones I see on TV.

But this isn't the kind of house that Daddy talks about when he almost finishes writing a book or holds a lottery ticket he got from work. He never talks about a house with no front yard and one tree planted by the city next to the curb and a garage for a car we don't have. He never talks about a house with one bath and no bookshelves and a computer shoved off into the corner of the kitchen. The house he talks about always has a kitchen full of food that isn't instant, and has an entire room dedicated to nothing but bookshelves, room for a bike and a dog and a TV. When he is staring at the roses on the peeling linoleum floor and the plaster on the ceiling that looks like icing on a wedding cake, Daddy likes to dream. He says he hates the fog here.

My friend Carly from school walked home with me once when Daddy had to stay at work extra late. She asked me which house was mine. There, I said, and pointed up to the second floor.

_There? You live _there? The way she said it made me follow her finger. Yes, _there_, the house on Pleasant Lane with its bulging, boarded windows and dirty bricks and squeaky hinges. _There_, a house with no dolls or paint or dogs and a man who only wants some books.

_There_, the house on Pleasant Lane, where a father and daughter live by themselves, where a daddy dreams of his own bookcase and has forgotten how to smile by himself.


End file.
